The Woman from Cheshire Avenue Page 9

  “I swear, Madison, I owe you big,” he sighed, pouring himself a second shot. “Like, huge.”

  He pictured her shrugging in her chair. “It’s my job,” she replied with a soft sigh. “I aspire to be good at my job.”

  Eric poured a third shot. “I like you way better than my last hallucination.” Visions of Lilith in demon red never quite sat well with him for some reason.

  “Don’t worry, love,” she promised, “I’ll take care of you from hereon out.”

  It was the second best news he’d gotten today.

  Around five-thirty, Lilith arrived, and by then, he’d relaxed considerably. His whole body was pleasantly warm and he lounged next to the apparition of Madison, who was now primly brushing the unfinished tips of her braids. Of course, once Lilith walked through the door, Madison winked at Eric before politely making herself scarce.

  They didn’t speak to each other at first. Lilith closed and locked the front door behind her without looking. Eric rose slowly from his seat and simply looked at her. For long moments, they stared at each other, taking in each other’s presence, and the comfort of not being watched.

  “Come with me,” she murmured suddenly, and headed towards her bedroom. Behind her, Eric peeled off his hoodie and shirt before following her, just as he’d done at Madison’s the night before. Something in the way she looked at him just told him it was okay, she wasn’t going to give him hell for tattoos—not tonight anyway. Tomorrow, however, he expected to hear the benefits of lasering.

  Her room was dark; the heavy drapes were pulled together, filling the room with shadow and silence, shrouding Eric and buying him some time before he had to explain his tattoos. The couple stood side by side, staring down at Lilith’s bed while listening to each other’s breathing. Each one could practically hear the fierce beating of the other’s heart. When the silence and distance dragged on long enough, Eric slowly turned his head left.

  “Lilith,” he murmured. He faltered for a second, not sure what was to follow, but then started again even more lowly, “Lilith—”

  “Man, you are whipped.”

  Alarmed, the couple quickly turned to face the bedroom doorway where Michael Hirosawa lounged comfortably, ominously draped in shadows.

  Thicker than Water

  “I mean, the woman hasn’t even touched you yet and you’re already moaning her name like a bitch,” Michael snickered. “Then again, what else can we expect? One kiss and she turned you into a stalker.”

  “You weren’t invited,” Lilith spat immediately. Her voice shook indignantly at his presumptuous appearance. “You want to spy on me at work? You want to buy my father? Fine, but my apartment is off-limits to you.”

  “Not tonight,” Michael shook his head. “See, I knew you couldn’t stay away from him…Lil. The whole ‘forbidden’ thing tends to be just too irresistible for some people.”

  Eric blinked, alarmed and confused. “I don’t—I don’t understand—”

  “You mean home girl here didn’t explain?” Michael chuckled. “Coke-snorting trash from the streets can’t date the daughters of prominent city politicians, Eric, especially not when the bourgeoisie are bankrolling their pet projects. Besides, don’t you goose-steppers frown on gettin’ nekkid with Negroes anyhow?”

  “Enough, Michael,” another male voice said quietly from the hall. Lilith tensed; she couldn’t see the new speaker and she didn’t recognize the voice at all. She listened closely as he continued, “This chatter is unnecessary.”

  Michael rolled his eyes. “Fine. Look, kids, on any other day of the week, I’d find your little losers’ affair kinda cute—Shakespearean, even. The bitch is, if it were to get out it would give my family’s co-sponsors just enough of an excuse to revoke the grant Frederick Wells earned.”

  “I don’t see the big deal,” Lilith snapped. “My father can get another grant for his work. He would support me in this.”

  “Ah, yes,” Michael snorted, “bully for you. But surely you remember a conversation we had earlier, about my family and this town? We were invited, Lilith; someone was bought and paid for…or at least, rented.” He grinned ruefully into the steadily growing dark. “See, kids, people always seem to want my family’s money, but not my family’s presence.” He shrugged casually. “They think we’re too messy. Can you believe that?”

  As Eric grew even tenser by her side, Lilith’s mind whirled, quickly filling in the blanks.

  “If my father’s grant gets revoked, then your money is no longer necessary,” she said, her words coming rapidly. “And if your money is no longer necessary, you’ll lose your tenuous ‘invite’ into Cherrywood. You’ll lose every easy political connection in this city.”

  “Michael, end this,” came that strange voice from the hall. There was a definite tinge of gritty impatience to his words. “You tell them too much.”

  “She would’ve figured things out anyway,” Michael dismissively tossed back over his shoulder. “But you’re right, bro,” he reached behind himself, under his blazer, “I really should end this.”

  “Lilith—” Eric called her name as he darted in front of her, turning to cover her body with his own. Lilith instinctively froze, not knowing what was happening. All she saw was a brief flash of silver in the dark before Eric collapsed against her, his weight bringing them both to their knees.

  The warm, sickening scent of blood swiftly rose to thicken the air.

  Lilith suddenly forgot all about Michael as Eric coughed up blood and weakly lay against her. She shakily wrapped her arms around his shoulders, unable to speak. Her heart had stopped beating, the air in her lungs was eerily still, and time seemed to painfully slow down as her chest, arms and hands were rapidly soaked with liquid red.

  “Madison,” Eric choked out.

  “Madison?” she asked, confused and trembling. “What’s Madison? Eric? Eric, what’s Madison?” She could not see, as he could see, the sorrowful girl in white behind her, oozing blood from a gaping wound in her chest.

  “Madison….” Eric’s last word came out slowly, as he finally lost his powers of speech. “Mad…Ma….”

  Lilith was already starting to break down. “E-Eric?”

  It was getting too dark to see anything now, so Michael moved into the bedroom to switch on a bedside lamp. The light revealed his knife, lodged snugly in Eric’s back, right in the center of his black swastika tattoo. In the pale golden light he could see scarlet rivulets oozing from the wound.

  “You know,” he murmured dryly, “there’s something about a swastika tattoo that just screams, ‘Target practice.’”

  “Is that supposed to be funny?” Lilith was furiously distraught, sobbing shrilly and talking without thinking. “And you wonder why nobody wants you here!”

  “Oh, we don’t wonder,” came the soft deep voice from the hall. “We already know all too well.”

  Lilith felt her blood freeze instantly as the speaker suddenly entered her bedroom. She knew at once he was a Hirosawa; he had an unfairly beautiful face, and the immaculate style of dress. Unlike Michael, however, this man wore his hair stylishly short and instead of wielding a knife, he carried a gun.

  “Hello, Lilith,” he greeted with typical Hirosawa eloquence, “I’m Nathaniel.”

  “Yeah,” Michael yawned. “This is my brother Nate.” He came to stand in front of Nathaniel, towering above Lilith and a now dead Eric. “Sweetheart, I promise this wasn’t personal.”

  “It sure as hell was to me!” she roared. “My father will know what you did here. He will know, once and for all, what you really are!”

  “Lilith,” Michael raised an eyebrow, “I distinctly recall advising you to shut your mouth.” He leaned over, pulling the knife from Eric’s back with a sickening noise and brandishing the bloody blade before her. “Now look at what it’s going to cost you.”

  Nathaniel’s gun cocked suddenly, commanding silence from them both; Lilith watched surprise break out across Michael’s face like a plague. He rose very
, very slowly to look at his brother, who was firmly pointing a gun at Michael’s head.

  “You will be merciful,” Nathaniel said softly, but firmly.

  As realization slowly began to dawn on her, it was Lilith’s turn to mock. “Trouble in paradise…Mike?” she asked bitterly.

  “Not exactly,” Nathaniel answered her, looking his brother directly in the eyes and never blinking once. He kept his voice easy and casual, as though he were discussing the weather. “It’s just my dear brother here has the unfortunate habit of twisting and warping even the simplest of orders.”

  “But he said he can only do what he’s told!” she cried.

  “And by the standards of his distorted little mind,” Nathaniel raised an eyebrow, “that’s precisely what he’s doing.”

  Michael’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You wouldn’t dare,” he rasped. “You would never dare.”

  “But I would, brother,” Nathaniel assured him. “I was ordered to and unlike you, I do no more and no less than exactly what I’m told.” His calm tone was so laidback Lilith actually found it soothing. “Which is why I was selected to take your place. As of now, all of your familial privileges are revoked.”

  “On what grounds?” Michael barked.

  “You weren’t supposed to do business with the Neo-Nazis, Michael,” his brother explained evenly. “That went without saying, and yet because of your severely flawed judgment, we expended far too many resources hunting every last one of them down.”

  It was amazing how he maintained such remarkable calm. A listener next door would never imagine Nathaniel was holding a gun to his own brother’s head.

  “The rest we tracked to their pitiful jobs, their little night schools, their shitty apartments, and even their parents’ home where, quite naturally, we couldn’t leave any witnesses alive. Not only was it costly and time-consuming, but so many dead people in such a short time is…quite distasteful, Michael.”

  Distasteful? Lilith gawked at Nathaniel in sheer bewilderment. A bunch of dead people—and their parents—was simply distasteful? Michael had essentially ordered a massacre and all his brother had to say about it was ‘distasteful’?

  Granted, they were lowlife Neo-Nazi scum, but still…they were children compared to the Hirosawa family. They were a ragtag band of losers against an ancient, hardened army. It wasn’t as though they were ever a real threat to Michael; as he’d said just moments earlier, they were little more than target practice.

  Lilith resisted the sudden urge to hurl.

  “In any case,” Nathaniel continued, his voice now bordering on serene, “our orders explicitly stated the Wells family was to remain intact and unharmed at all times.”

  “Her father is intact and unharmed!” Michael snarled.

  Nathaniel’s face remained neutral, even as he wearily sighed, “The whole family, Michael. You know this as well as I.”

  “So what do you propose now?” his brother sneered. “How do you intend to solve this little conundrum? She tells her father, and it ends anyway.”

  “Not if we compromise,” Nathaniel shook his head.

  Michael’s mouth fell open; for a moment he seemed rendered mute from incredulity. Eventually, he laughingly choked out, “Compromise? Compromise? Since when do we compromise, Nate?”

  “Since the old methods ceased to work…Mike,” Nathaniel answered coolly. “You see, Lilith, there was a time when my family actually cherished its less mentally stable members. We prized our psychopathic kin, for they made exceptional enforcers. They were the shadow which accompanied our name. But now we are evolving into a family of business, so our more troublesome elements, like as Michael here, have to be monitored closely and tightly controlled.

  “Michael, you may remain in your new home if you wish,” Nathaniel announced sternly, “but you no longer have any authority. You will live out your life as though you were never even born a Hirosawa. Which leaves me to rectify your latest mess. Lilith?” he asked, still never taking his eyes off Michael and never lowering his gun. “Do you have a request?”

  As if from the beyond, a whisper entered her mind in response.

  Madison.

  “Madison,” she repeated. “Fulfill his last wish. Find Madison.”

  It was Michael’s turn to be condescending. “And do you suggest we accomplish that? Is Madison a place? A person? A beloved pet, or a bumper sticker? What the fuck is Madison, and why the hell should we care?”

  “Because it’s what he wanted,” Lilith insisted through clenched teeth. “And now it’s what I want. Nathaniel, that’s my request.”

  “Consider it your first civilian task,” Nathaniel said levelly, though Lilith detected the slightest smirk upon his lips. “As I recall from viewing the maps of this city, there is a Madison Avenue which runs through the west end. You can start there.

  “In the meantime, Lilith, I would like to extend the sincerest apology on behalf of my entire family.”

  Epilogues

  Three days later

  Eric Quisling was buried on a gray day in late summer. The sun and winds seemed to respectfully keep themselves at bay while the dark clouds hung thick and heavy. It would not seem right to Lilith that such a day be beautiful and bright.

  Nathaniel Hirosawa had generously purchased a central plot in one of Cherrywood’s six cemeteries, along with an elegant black casket and a small marble statue of a weeping angel. Engraved upon its base, beneath Eric’s full name and dates and of birth and death, were the words, “…and for the brave, redemption.”

  Nathaniel brought along his sister Rachel, whom he only briefly introduced to Lilith’s family. Though Rachel had her family’s signature magnetic demeanor and exceedingly attractive appearance, Lilith wisely didn’t try to get to know her better. She knew she couldn’t make the Hirosawas go away once for all, and she knew she would be seeing more of them in this town and at important functions, but she also knew she didn’t have to be friends with any of them.

  Sweet older brother Mike be damned.

  There was no one else being buried that day; the cemetery was befittingly empty and still. Lilith had persuaded Father Andrew of Cherrywood Catholic University to perform the final rites. Before she agreed, she had to assure him repeatedly Eric’s death wasn’t a suicide…and explain why she hadn’t come to mass since graduation.

  She didn’t dress up for Eric’s funeral; it made no sense to do so. Why look beautiful on such an ugly day? Eric couldn’t see her now, and he would never see her again. At the thought, Lilith felt racked with guilt.

  “I wish I could’ve known the man,” Kendra Wells comforted her sister, reaching out to touch her shoulder. She’d gone overboard with her black dress and veil. She looked like something out of a 1940s fashion magazine. “Who was he?”

  “A man who cared for me,” Lilith replied with the utmost bitterness. “Cared so much he gave his life to save mine.” They didn’t need to know anything else. In the end, this was the only thing about Eric that really mattered.

  “I still don’t understand,” Frederick raised an eyebrow, scrutinizing his daughter. As expected, he’d worn the finest black suit in his closet. “When were you in that kind of danger? And why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”

  Nathaniel opened his mouth to intervene, but his sister quickly hushed him, and thankfully so.

  “I’ve made some bad decisions,” Lilith confessed vaguely. “I don’t want to say any more than that.” I just thought I was playing a little game. I never thought anyone would actually get hurt.

  “His parents may want to know,” Frederick persisted mildly. She knew what he was doing. Fishing as always, trying to figure her out. She suddenly realized where she got it from, this dangerous curiosity.

  “He had no family,” she replied. At least, he never spoke of them, she didn’t add. And the Hirosawas had killed off all his friends, which she knew Nathaniel would prefer not to bring up. “He had no one but me,” she finally admitted aloud, and once she did,
a floodgate unleashed, causing to Lilith weep yet again.

  * * *

  After sulking for three days alone in his big, empty new house, Michael Hirosawa finally decided to go find “Madison.”

  When night fell on the day of Eric’s funeral, he started at the center of town, where Madison Avenue ended, and followed it westward. It led him through a series of local businesses, across many a dark alley, before it finally gave way to comfortable-looking neighborhoods, each one slowly falling asleep. He heard puppies following their equally young masters through the screen doors of their one-story homes. He saw the moonlit picket fences and sighed; it was like walking through a peaceful village. Indeed, there was something tranquilly attractive about peasant life. He walked for several long moments, savoring the cool night air and the smell of cut grass, almost forgetting his assignment entirely.

  He was beginning to think this was pointless.

  It wasn’t until he reached Madison and 12th that he felt a ray of hope. Lounging against a lamppost was a peculiar-looking young woman with long black and pink braids, red and black striped thigh-high stockings, and shiny black heels. As Michael drew closer to her, he felt a wave of confusion. Scanning the area quickly, he tried to make sure he was where he thought he was, or at least supposed to be.

  “Hey, cutie,” she called out to him, her voice more sweet than vampy. “Whatcha doin’ tonight?”

  Michael came to stand near her, looking around himself once more before asking, “Seriously?” He didn’t mean for it to come out as a laugh, but he couldn’t help it. For a split second he wondered if a camera crew was hiding in the hedges somewhere.

  She sighed wearily, but sweetly nonetheless. “Seriously.”

  “But…but this…this place—”

  “It’s a nice neighborhood,” she shrugged. “The other girls stick to the scarier neighborhoods, where I used to be. See, a long time ago we all decided I would function better in a place like this.” She flashed a childlike grin. “And they were right! I made five hundred bucks today.” She breathed on the nails of her right hand, and then polished them off on her pink blouse.